Dysfunctional
by fowl68
Summary: They're not sure when they started thinking of the others as 'theirs'. When the couch became 'our couch'. Somewhere in between snarls and laughter; arguments and forgiveness, they suppose. Team 7 fic


**Disclaimer:** Don't own anything.

**Author's Note:** Went to Aquatica yesterday and, for the first time that I can remember, I am burned by that too-bright ball of hydrogen gas called the Sun. All over my shoulders. Argh. But I still had loads of fun, even if it does hurt to move. Gonna go see the new Karate Kid and see how it is. RIP Mr. Miyagi

-/-/

_The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. ~Erma Bombeck_

-/-/

It seems incredible that they'd hated each other at one point. Granted, they still hate each other sometimes, still shout and glare and storm out of the room, but they crawl back to each other now. Sometimes literally.

None of them are sure when they thought of the others as 'theirs', when the kitchen became 'their kitchen' and the couch was 'our couch'. Somewhere in between snarls and laughter and grudging forgiveness, Sakura supposes.

They're a ragtag, mismatched and patched together family, but they're all they've got now. True, Sakura's mom is still alive and working as a cleaning lady at the nearby inn, but Sakura finds that there is less and less that she can speak to her about. How could she tell her mother about the patient that she hadn't been able to save, the prisoner that she had been ordered to see to?

Sakura wants to think that Kakashi would be the father of their little family, but they've switched role far more than once. Most of the time, Kakashi is that exasperating, arrogant older brother that you love no matter what he does. He's had his moments though. Her first break-up, Sakura thinks that Kakashi acted very much like a father then.

He'd slipped through her door—that was something that had changed with them all sharing the same living quarters ninety percent of the time. Kakashi used doors much more often than windows now—and found her in that place between angry and in tears. He didn't say a word, just sat beside her on the bed, hands clasped a little awkwardly in his lap. Now that Sakura looks back on this, she supposes that Kakashi had never had to do something like that before.

So it surprises her when the first words out of his mouth are, "You're too good for him."

She glances up at him. She'd heard her boys' complaints—when had they become '_her'_ boys rather than just '_the'_ boys?—when she'd first begun dating him. Sasuke had gone very still and Sakura had to physically keep Naruto inside lest he beat down the poor bastard.

"You never approved of him." She'd said, hiccupping a little. She always hiccupped when she was upset.

Kakashi shook his head slowly. "No. But…you were growing up. I-I had to let you learn some things on your own, had to let you experience them."

How much effort it must have taken him to make those words come out!

"I want to hate you a little for that, but I suppose that, if you hadn't, I might have hated you a little more."

Kakashi's silent for another moment before he asks, "So do I have your permission to maim that bastard?"

That makes Sakura burst out into a fit of giggles. She can't help it. "No, but thanks for the offer."

Kakashi makes a whine like a hurt puppy and Sakura honestly believes that he has spent far too much time living alone with those dogs of his. But she supposes she can live with that. After all, there weren't many people who'd come to cheer her up in this odd manner that only Hatake Kakashi has.

-/-/

Sasuke and Naruto, the boys, _her_ boys even though they weren't really boys anymore. No, Sakura thinks, they're most definitely men now. They were brothers and best friends and patients and guardians. They both had their motherly moments, both had their older brother days, even though Naruto is the youngest.

Sasuke makes a startlingly good cook. Sakura would even go so far as to say that he enjoys it. He, more than Kakashi or Sakura, makes sure that they all eat something resembling at least one good meal a day when they're home. Even if, the first and only time that they'd asked the what's and the why's, Sasuke had just looked away and said, "You gonna eat it or not?"

They bickered constantly, all of them. Even those rare times when none of them had missions. Especially then. Over which movie to watch, who got the remote, what they wanted for dinner. They bet gummy bears and ice cream scoops on poker games. They teased and nagged each other without thinking about it.

The older shinobi, the few that had lived and made it through everything, the real veterans, they talked about the new generations. How unnatural it was for them to still be this close. After all, once the genin passed their chuunin exams, they were naturally still comrades with their team, still spoke occasionally to them and nodded to each other in the streets, but to have let them become family, it wasn't normal. At least, back then it hadn't been.

Rather than the occasional lunch together, they sat down at their dinner table most every night and sharing the little details of their day because none of them had ever had anyone to do that with. It was a little thing, really, and one of the more boring things, but it was new and different for them. They steal toothpaste and borrow shampoo_(Sakura wondered why hers was the one who always ran out first); _they know how each of them takes their coffee _(Sasuke likes his black, as black as the devil's own heart. Naruto likes it with lots of milk and some sugar to the point where its milk with some coffee in it and Sakura likes hers with some cream and caramel. Kakashi hates coffee and prefers tea.)_

_-/-/_

It takes her a minute to realize when something is off about her boys one morning. It was her day off, so she'd slept in, slept in even later than Kakashi, which was quite an achievement and they're staring at her oddly.

"Something wrong?" She asks.

She follows their eyes and they're on her shirt. Had it been anyone else other than her boys, she'd say that they were looking at her breasts, but they'd all seen each other naked at some point or another—Sakura was the one who saw them bare most of the time. She _was_ their doctor after all—so it wasn't such a big deal.

"That's my shirt." Sasuke-and-Naruto say at the same time.

Sakura looks down. It's a holey, faded black T-shirt that's several sizes too big on her, falling halfway down her thighs. She knows its not hers, but she can't, for the life of her, remember where she'd gotten it.

Sasuke and Naruto look at each other, brows furrowed and frowns on their faces and then they shrug and go back to their breakfast. It wouldn't be the first time they'd all stolen clothes from the other. Sakura knows that her favorite shirt, worn with the edges of the long sleeves frayed, was one of Kakashi's older ones.

-/-/

Naruto's a naturally affectionate person. He touches people unconsciously. Sakura, who has a cousin who visits occasionally who is like that, doesn't mind the hugs and the easy, brotherly kisses to the forehead. Naruto doesn't often hug Kakashi, but then there's something much more fatherly between them than with the others, something that neither of them quite knows how to handle. _(Tsunade had told Sakura about Kakashi's team once, about his sensei and how close they were. Apparently, Kakashi was there, sitting right beside Minato at the birth and had watched over Naruto for the first few days while everyone was trying to get their bearings back after Kyuubi's attack)_

Sasuke is the one that stiffens when Naruto leans on him or rests his chin on his shoulder while he cooks. The one who ducks away from Naruto's hands playing with his hair when then they're watching a movie. It's better than it used to be, when the Uchiha would snarl at Naruto if he got too close in his personal space, but Sakura doesn't think he'll ever be comfortable with Naruto's touches.

-/-/

Stay in the shinobi business _(killing business, dark business, bloody business)_ long enough and there's a point where the mind can begin to crack from the stress and the blood. For the most part, it was manageable. You couldn't sleep some nights, you saw a few things that weren't really there. No big deal.

There were also people like Anko who, while she managed to stay within spitting distance of sanity most days, would never be right again.

And then there were the people that fell between the cracks. Not sane, but not quite insane either. Kakashi was one of the perfect examples.

-/-/

They all leapt out of their beds one lazy morning when Gai nearly breaks down the front door—nearly because, they discovered later, Kakashi had unlocked the door earlier that night. Clearly, this wasn't something new—and Gai is jerking open the curtains and stealing Kakashi's blankets.

The three of them are standing at Kakashi's bedroom door and wishing desperately to go back to sleep. When they ask Kakashi about it later that night, he simply gives them his eye-smile and just says that it's a Gai thing.

Sakura has known Kakashi long enough to know that there's more to it than that, so she goes to the records room and goes through dusty file after dusty file searching for any event that had occurred on that day in Kakashi's life.

The only thing she could find was almost twelve years ago and Sakura feels a pang of guilt at this because twelve years ago had been when Naruto had left with Jiraiya and Sasuke had betrayed them and she'd begun her training under Tsunade.

Her mind began piecing it together, something that only made her feel worse. The boys had had to leave. There had been nothing more for them in the village. But she'd been here, she'd passed Kakashi in the hospital halls sometimes, had even chatted with him a little. How could she not have seen how lonely he must have gotten, how he had no reason to get up in the mornings when he didn't have a mission or anything pressing like groceries or a meeting?

She goes to ask Gai about it and he tells her about that time. Tells her about how Kakashi would sleep the days away. Gai had no need to tell her how unhealthy this was. Every now and then, sleeping in was wonderful. But every day? Never good. So, Gai explained, he'd gone in one morning and woken him, made sure he got showered and dressed in clean clothes before challenging him.

Slowly, the others of their age group began to catch on to what Gai was doing and they'd all always looked out for each other. Some more than others. Like Genma had always been there for Hayate, even when the man was a stubborn ass and refused to go to the hospital half the time for that damn cough. How Shizune had come in a day after Asuma's death and cleaned Kurenai up and made her tea. So they began making a few visits to Kakashi's apartment as well.

After Kakashi had gotten Team 7—as they were back then; innocent, naïve and determined in their goals—they'd visited for a while at first, but slowly the visits began to trickle away to nothing, save for Gai's. And Gai only continued in his visits out of loyalty and a subconscious way of offering Kakashi some kind of stability.

-/-/

Naruto falls in between the cracks as well. Not that he's unstable. No, those days were long behind them. But the night terrors persisted and Sakura is reminded that, as human beings, they have an astounding ability to rub off on each other.

It was one of those nights that Sakura hears the screaming and she's automatically awake and searching for her robe. It takes her several minutes before she's crossing the hall and carefully pushes open Naruto's door.

She finds herself mildly surprised to see Sasuke already there. Clearly, he'd had to wrestle Naruto back to semi-consciousness from the state of the sheets, but Naruto's now got his arms around Sasuke's waist, face pressed against his stomach. And Sasuke doesn't flinch away from the touch. Rather the opposite and is awkwardly stroking Naruto's hair and patting at one of his hands in what Sasuke supposes is supposed to be comforting.

Sakura steps back out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind her. Kakashi is leaning against the wall and she responds to his curious look by saying, "Naruto'll be fine. Want some coffee?" Since none of them could really go back to sleep once they were awake anyways.

-/-/

It goes against the shinobi grain, really. Their arrangements. The way that they picked up where simple things like friendship left off. And it's not as thought they can live without the others now.

Who else would remind them to pack that extra pair of socks or that jacket for the mission in Snow? Who else would push that plate of breakfast in front of them to remind them to eat? Sakura can remember her cousin, that affectionate one that she sees only sparingly, telling her once that family helps you shoot for the moon and is there to catch you when you come crashing down.


End file.
